


Differently

by jaicro_bitch



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Character Death, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:34:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3546230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaicro_bitch/pseuds/jaicro_bitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Ygritte's funeral, and Jon wishes she wasn't the only one in a coffin. Angsty one shot, Modern AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differently

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! So this is the first fanfiction I've posted, so I apologize if it doesn't live up to your expectations. Read, comment, review; nothing negative, please, but constructive criticism is welcome.

He does not speak at the funeral. Instead, he clenches his jaw tight, because he knows that if he opens his mouth, no words will come out, just the incoherent sobs and screams of a madman.

Tears stream down his face, and Robb, standing beside him, shoots him sympathetic glances. Arya is beside him too, stony-faced and silent. But neither of them comment on his tears, because this is a funeral, and you are supposed to cry. You are supposed to grieve. You are supposed to wear black for a while, and then, after it’s all said and done, you are expected to carry on your life as though nothing has happened. As though there is not a piece of you missing, one you will never get back. As though there is not a deep black pit that opens up inside your chest and threatens to swallow you whole when you think about them, or mention them, or hear their name. The name of the person who is now six feet under, in their finest clothes, slowly rotting into nothing. Taunting you with the fact that there is only _one_ way you will ever be able to see them again.

 _But I can’t carry on like nothing’s happened_ , he thinks to himself bitterly.

He’s so weary he can barely stand, because he hasn’t slept worth a damn in days. At night, he either drinks until he blacks out and wakes up with a terrible hangover in the morning, or he cries himself out and manages to keep his eyes closed for an hour or two. The first method of falling asleep is preferable, because the nightmares that haunt him when he manages sleep without the assistance of alcohol are anything but wonderful.

They aren’t exactly nightmares, really. Before, if he’d had dreams about her, like the ones that haunt him every other night now, he would’ve woken up smiling. If it was a weekend, he would’ve called her, asking her if she wants to come over and apologizing for waking her up, because, goddamn, he loves her and he misses her and _please come over please_? And should would always say yes, and laugh, and everything would be okay and wonderful and nothing could go wrong in those precious moments with her.

Now, when he wakes up from dreams about her, his eyes are red and swollen, and he can’t pick up the phone and call her because she’s fucking dead and _ohgodshesdeadshesdeadwhywhywhy_ and memories of her torment him for the next few hours before he wanders into the kitchen and drinks himself into a stupor with Zima. She always loved Zima, so he made sure to have extra bottles lying around his apartment. She’s gone now, he figures, so there’s no one left to drink it but him. And he drinks, and his tears mingle with the burn of alcohol in his throat, and he pours the poison down his body so he can forget the day they went to the beach and he kissed her in the ocean, or the lilts and falls of her voice, or the exact shade and hue of her red hair.

He’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts and memories of her that he almost forgets Robb’s presence beside him, watching him, waiting for him to break down and crack, ready to take care of him when he does, ever the watchful big brother. He also barely registers it when Arya slips her small hand into his and squeezes. It takes him a moment, but he curls his fingers around hers in response. He switches his gaze over from where the pale, dead girl sleeps with her flaming red hair spread out on the pillow around her, to his little sister, and he’s not surprised to see tears streaming down her face, either. She and Ygritte were close, probably because they were so alike. Brave and fierce and wild. They were also as sweet as honey on the inside, even if they never let it show. And even though Robb and Ygritte didn’t have sleepovers and stay up till midnight swapping secrets, Robb still liked her. _“She’s like my sister, except I actually have to be nice to her,”_ he’d said once, with a grin. The memory is like a dagger now, cutting through him.

The sight of tears on Arya’s face is another dagger, right where his heart used to be, before Ygritte ended up in the black, polished box in front of him . He wishes he could take Arya’s pain away. He doesn’t want her to have the same empty space in her chest that he does.

And he wishes for the thousandth time since it happened that it didn’t have to end this way with her. He wishes it could’ve ended differently, could’ve ended in a way that made him hate her, instead of in a way that made him want to fling himself off the nearest bridge when he even thought about her. He wishes that one of them could’ve cheated, or started doing drugs, or one just stopped loving the other and then they would’ve broken up, because hating her or not loving her anymore would’ve been so much simpler than this. It would’ve been so much better if he was burning with hatred at the thought of her, or just didn’t feel anything for her, instead of missing the feeling of her body pressed up against his at night.

He didn’t think it was possible, but wishing he didn’t love her when she died makes the hole in his chest grow bigger than ever before.

Not for the first time since she was gone, he wishes he was in the coffin with her.  

 

 


End file.
